


Everything in its Place

by Chrononautical



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Happy Halloween!, Women Being Awesome, Women helping other women, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 12:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16475315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrononautical/pseuds/Chrononautical
Summary: There is a place for everything, and everything should be in its place. The place for ghosts is definitely not in the house. Unfortunately, ghosts don't always understand that. So who you gonna call?





	Everything in its Place

Miranda dried the coffee mug with a clean red and white towel, and then dried it again, making sure it was pristine before putting it away carefully in the cupboard above the sink. The side of the plain white mug had a bright red and blue Union Jack on it. Miranda didn’t remember buying the tacky thing. It must have been a gift. 

A bright full moon shone through the kitchen window illuminating the chain link that fenced in her little patch of grass. At least at night she couldn’t see the rust. In the distance, a dog barked. 

Brooklyn was supposed to be quieter than Harlem, safer, but she couldn’t sleep. The wind rattled the chain link fence. It was only the wind. Well, if she couldn’t sleep, she could be productive. Miranda swept the living room, then scrubbed the hardwood with water and white vinegar. She washed the windows, dusted the mantelpiece, and vacuumed the sofa. This was her home. 

When the basement door creaked open, green light shining in the darkness, Miranda ran upstairs and dove into bed. She wasn’t afraid. Nothing was wrong. Home was a place of safety. Her place, and she was perfectly alone.

In the morning, there was a brown ring in the bottom of the stupid Union Jack mug.

Miranda cleaned it. What else could she do? 

An orderly home made for an orderly world. Scrubbing the toilets, polishing the mirrors, and taking a toothbrush to the tile grout helped her focus her mind. Kept her from imagining things. Kept her from hearing the rattling in the basement. It was probably only the dryer, that repetitive, metallic clicking. 

Miranda wasn’t doing laundry.

As she was dusting the lamp in the living room, the television switched on. Miranda must have bumped into the remote. The remote which was sitting neatly on top of the small stack of magazines in the center of the coffee table. Maybe there was a loose fuse somewhere. She would have to go into the basement to check. 

Miranda sat down and watched TV.

On the screen, four women in brown jumpsuits shot lazer beams at a bizarre flying gargoyle. At first, Miranda thought it was a movie. But no, that was the local news anchor. The anchor switched to the weather, and then a short lifestyle piece about the Humane Society. The Ghostbusters were real. Jack would have hated that. Once, when Miranda mentioned seeing a psychic for relationship advice, he cut up all her credit cards. Told her she couldn’t be trusted with money. But Jack was in Long Island. Miranda had a new house, now. A home. Far away from him. 

The television was so loud that Miranda didn’t hear the basement door creak open. She was so absorbed in what she was watching that she didn’t see the green light filling the kitchen. When the metallic rattling sounded behind her, loud and repetitive, it was too late to run. 

***

“You’re the local history expert, Patty.” Abby paused, ringing the doorbell of the two story house a third time. “What do you think we’re looking at out here in residential Brooklyn?” 

“Girl, if you think there haven’t been murders aplenty out here, it’s not history you need to pay attention to, it’s the nightly news.” 

Erin nodded to Patty, acknowledging the point, but drifted around the outside of the house with the EMF detector. The oval spun in lazy pink orbit near the rose bushes, but it twirled when she reached the chain link fence. There was something unusual about the house, no question. A ghost. A little shiver ran down Erin’s spine. No matter how many ghosts they encountered, that thrill of vindication never went away.

On the porch, Holtzmann was already flirting with their client, Ms. Scott. She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties wearing a neatly pressed button down and a pencil skirt. So, exactly Holtzmann’s type. Erin rolled her eyes and went to wrangle the conversation back around to ghosts.

“Did you turn up anything interesting when you looked into the history of the house?” Erin asked Patty. 

“Yeah,” Patty said. “You know what? I did. Of the last four residents, no one’s kept the place for more than a year. The owner before that rented it out. He held onto the title for ten years, but when I called him he said he couldn’t keep a tenant in the place for more than a week.”

“But no murders, mysterious disappearances, suicides, or other unexplained deaths?” Abby asked, leaning over Patty to poke at the EMF detector in Erin’s hands.

“Don’t you think I woulda led with that? Yeah, Abby, a serial killer lived here and I have his name and social security number, but I just wasn’t gonna mention it.” 

Erin laughed. Abby held up her hands in mock surrender, but she was smiling, too. 

“Please, excuse them, ma’am. I’ll be committing them to a secure facility later this afternoon,” Holtzmann told the woman. “You were saying, about the spectral manifestations?” 

“Lights, noises, things moving without being touched,” Ms. Scott said. “I just. Don’t feel safe here.” Which killed the humor pretty quickly. 

The inside of the house was immaculate. Erin suspected stress cleaning, which made total sense to her as a coping mechanism for unwanted paranormal experiences. Not only would every lamp and baseboard pass a white glove test, but Erin didn’t see a single streak on any of the windows. That was dedication. Or an obsessive compulsion. 

“Is there a particular area of the house that seems most affected?” Erin asked, scanning the area with the detector. It whirled a little more than it had outside, but the readings still weren’t anything dramatic. 

“I don’t know. Everywhere, really. Maybe the basement?” 

“Okay, okay, that’s good,” Holtzmann said. “We’ll definitely check that out, but first, is there anything you know that might force the ghost to show itself? A certain light that always flickers at a certain time of day?” 

“Does the TV always go on for General Hospital?” Patty asked. “You gonna laugh, but that actually happened at this one brownstone out in Queens.”

“Maybe it likes cheese? Anything weird happen when you put out a cheese plate?” 

“Really?” Erin looked at Abby, who seemed to be asking in earnest. “Cheese?” 

“I don’t know,” Abby said. “The ghosts in Harry Potter like cheese.”

Erin sighed. 

“Ignore them.” Holtzmann waved expansively. “Or don’t.” She leaned in to peer at Ms. Scott through her goggles. “Does the ghost like cheese?” 

Taking a deep breath, the client said, “Yeah. Or, no, not cheese, but I think there’s something I can show you.” Leading them into the kitchen, she got down a white mug with the blue and red flag of the United Kingdom emblazoned on the side. Going over to the Mister Coffee, she filled it up. Then she drank it.

Erin continued scanning for EMF, but nothing happened. Basically, four highly qualified paranormal investigators watched a woman drink an entire cup of coffee in silence. 

Holtzmann twitched. “Ah, ma’am?” 

“Just watch.” 

So for three minutes they watched the empty cup sitting next to the sink. Then the EMF detector went crazy, spinning so fast that the antennae were horizontal instead of vertical, and the cup rose into the air. The water turned on. The incongruously pink sponge started floating, scrubbing the cup, which dipped beneath the stream of water, and washed itself. It bounced once, twice, shaking excess drops into the sink. When that was done, a red and white checkered dish towel floated up to dry it off, and the mug was replaced in the cupboard above the sink. 

As one woman, the four Ghostbusters tilted their heads thirty degrees to the right and said, “Huh.” 

“Ms. Scott,” Erin said slowly, “How often do you clean your home?” 

“What?” The woman seemed surprised by the question. “I mean, I’ve had other things on my mind lately. I do the dishes, usually. It’s just that cup. I picked it up for ten bucks at Heathrow two years ago. I don’t think it’s a haunted mug.” 

“Right,” Abby said. “So the ghost doesn’t do most of the dishes, but it does do all of the sweeping and mopping?” She paused, exchanging a glance with Patty. “How much do you want for the house?”

Erin punched her in the arm. “Abby!” 

“That’s right,” Holtzmann said. “Ms. Scott is our client. She’s not interested in selling her awesomely haunted, self-cleaning house.” Although she was still facing Abby, Holtzmann’s eyes slid to look at Ms. Scott. “You’re not, right?” 

“I’m not,” Ms. Scott said firmly. “This is my home. It’s a beautiful house, I love the neighborhood, and I intend to stay. Once you get rid of the ghost.” 

Nodding, Erin clipped the EMF detector to her belt and pulled out her blaster. “Then we better go check out the basement.” 

The low, electronic hum of four proton packs powering up echoed around the narrow staircase as the Ghostbusters descended. It was pretty creepy, as far as basements went. Exposed wooden rafters. Dark gray cement walls. The occasional step crack in the foundation. Oh, and a spectral woman blinking in and out of existence, pointing to a corner of the room. 

“Wow,” Abby said. “Oh, wow. You’re beautiful.” 

The specter, at least a T-3, flickered again, turning her head to look at Abby, though her arm remained erect, pointing. Her mouth moved soundlessly. Just a T-3, then, and incapable of aural manifestations. 

“Look at the wall,” Patty said. 

It was bleeding. Bleeding walls were not an uncommon apparition. Sometimes they were even benign, an indication of history and nothing more, but the blood pooling to form the word “Out” was pretty definitively hostile. 

“You heard her, Ladies,” Holtzmann said. “Let’s get her out of here.” 

“Wait!” Erin stared at the wall. Another word was forming. “Look out! It says ‘look out!’” 

Just then, the basement door slammed shut and all the lights winked out. Someone screamed as the room plunged into absolute darkness. Green light flashed. Erin realized immediately that not being able to see the lights of her own proton gun glowing in her hands meant that some sort of particulate was filling the air. Could be supernatural fog, eldritch darkness, otherworldly obfuscation, or any number of explanations. More testing was clearly needed. Unfortunately, whatever it was, turning on her flashlight didn’t do anything. She didn’t dare discharge a weapon when she had zero visibility. 

“If you’ve been lifted to the ceiling, scream now,” Holtzmann shouted. 

Less than a second later, the bright light of a reverse tractor beam blasted through the darkness, carving through one of the wooden beams, leaving scorched, glowing embers behind. The obscuring particulate retreated, leaving normal darkness. Between her flashlight and the glow of the four proton packs, Erin could see that a masculine figure had their client by the throat with one hand. The only thing stopping him from murder was the second ghost. 

She had her arms half around him, both of her hands pulling one of his fists down into her own body so that it could not be used against Ms. Scott. 

“Hey, tough guy!” Abby shouted. “You like hitting women?” Her fist glowed as she punched him with her glove-like sidearm. 

The masculine ghost rocketed backward, disappearing into the wall with a puff of spectral energy. Left alone, Ms. Scott and the female apparition stared at each other. Then the other ghost came back. 

As one, the four Ghostbusters lit him up, narrowing their beams with well rehearsed precision to box him in the containment unit and bring him back to the lab for research. That only left first ghost. Reluctantly, Erin turned her proton gun on the hovering specter. 

“No!” Ms. Scott stepped in front of the apparition. “She saved me.” Turning around to face the ghost, she said. “You saved me.” 

Flickering, the specter pointed to the wall once more. Now, the words written in blood spelled, “Away from Jack,” and “Home.” 

“Jack,” Patty said. “Jack Larsen?” 

Suddenly, the ghost’s head snapped around. Staring straight at Patty, she nodded once. Slowly. 

“Something you came across in your research?” Erin asked, speaking to Patty without turning her eyes from the ghost or lowering her weapon. 

“Yeah.” Patty also had her proton gun up, but it was loose in her hand. “You’re Miranda Larsen, aren’t you?”

Again, the ghost nodded, her dark eyes never leaving Patty’s face. 

“It’s a sad fucking story.” Patty shook her head and glanced over at Erin. “They were legally separated, getting a divorce, when she bought this house. But they, uh, reconciled. He sold it. Less than six months later, he beat her to death and shot himself. I didn’t think she could be our ghost though, because it didn’t happen here. They died off in Harlem.” 

Behind Miranda, the word “Home” still bled across the cement wall of the basement. Erin was willing to bet that Miranda Larsen did her fair share of bleeding when her husband came to this house to “reconcile” with her. 

“She can stay,” Ms. Scott said softly. 

Miranda stared at her silently. 

“All you want is a clean house and a safe place to be, right?” Ms. Scott asked. 

The ghost nodded. 

“I can understand that. Please, make yourself at home.” 

Like overexposed film, the ghost slowly faded away until the five living women appeared to be alone in the basement. For a long moment, no one said anything, letting the adrenaline fade. 

Then Holtzmann lifted the trap up with one hand and prodded it with a wrench. “I’ve got some excruciatingly painful experiments in mind for you, asshole.” 

Laughing took care of the last of the terror, and the client escorted the Ghostbusters back upstairs. 

“You know,” Erin said, “Miranda will probably cross over eventually. Most spirits of her caliber do, after a few years. Now that Jack isn’t tormenting her, she’ll likely just fade away.” 

“If that’s what she wants,” said Ms. Scott evenly, “but if it isn’t, she’ll always have a place here.”


End file.
